Author: Hirofumi Oguri

Contingency in International Law Symposium: Are What-ifs a Virtual Experiment or a Parlour Game? Some Thoughts on Methodology Bridging International Law and History

[Hirofumi Oguri is a Senior Assistant Professor of International Law at Okayama University in Japan.]  In his famous series of lectures delivered at Cambridge University, E. H. Carr displayed a cynical attitude towards those who tend to ask what if an event had happened otherwise. Carr dismissed this ‘might-have-been’ school of thought as no better than a ‘parlour game’. However, asking ‘what if’ questions is...